John Wizards

A wildly eclectic South African act that lilts from style to style-- reggae, pop, R&B-- with sweatless poise. Ryan Dombal talks with band leader John Withers about cultural appropriation, making music for commercials, and Vampire Weekend.

John Withers is a uncannily modern figure. Hailing from Cape Town, South Africa, the 25-year-old is an internet-raised musical sponge, taking in a startling range of global styles-- dub reggae, R&B, classical, jazz, high-speed African dance music, electro-pop, tropicalia, folk, Congolese rumba, Mali meditative music-- and distilling them into his self-titled debut album as John Wizards, out this September via Planet Mu. Armed with a guitar, a condenser microphone, and a few computer programs, Withers composed and recorded the album in his bedroom over the course of two years, working around the schedule of the noisy club next door. The record is spacious, joyous, and wholly refreshing, with the disparate tracks and genres segueing into each other with the unencumbered flow of a swift and clear waterway.

Though Withers has since formed a live John Wizards band for local shows, he's responsible for nearly every sound on the album. He shares vocal duties throughout with Rwandan vocalist Emmanuel Nzaramba, who sings in his native Kinyarwanda language on the wobbling single "Lusaka by Night". The pairing also symbolizes a racial progressiveness for South Africa, a country still dealing with the lingering effects of apartheid two decades after its dissolution. On this point, Withers is hopeful, but realistic. "Centuries of segregation and oppression will definitely take a while to change," he says. "It’s a very slow process."

Another only-in-2013 occurrence: Among the current artists he's into, Withers mentions Vampire Weekend, which means that, in just a few years, the New York City band has evolved from so-called pilferers of South African culture to influencing at least one actual South African band. "If you're white and playing an African style, even in Africa, it’s a touchy thing," says Withers. "But I’ve got no real problem with people drawing on anything-- if the music is nice, the music is nice." Thus far, he's met no resistance when it comes to his own attempts at incorporating traditionally black sounds into his own music.

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Withers is currently paying his rent for an apartment near Cape Town's City Hall by making music for TV commercials, putting him in a unique position in the current discussion about where music ends and commerce begins, too. The son of an ad man, he grew up playing classical piano, before switching to guitar, and then studying art history at university.

His post-collegiate life has been marked by a series of trips and adventures around southern Africa that work in communion with his music. Several songs on John Wizards take their names from these locales, like "Muizenberg" (a beachside Cape Town suburb), "Limpopo" (the northernmost South African province), "Lushoto" (near the east coast of Tanzania), and the storied South African village of Hogsback. "When I’m naming songs, it’s not so much about anything to do with the place specifically, but more the feeling that the place gives," he says. "I write the song and it reminds me of something-- the experience of being somewhere foreign is very exciting for me." With his music, Withers is passing those feelings on. His album is imbued with a post-tourist mindset where sounds whiz by like scenery from a train window but also make enough of an impression to stick with you once you're back home.

Pitchfork: This album really exists in its own musical universe. Were you an imaginative kid growing up?

John Withers: I think so. I had a reputation for being a bit daydream-y in high school. When we'd play cricket, I would just stand in the field and think about other things. One teacher would always shout at me and make a play off my surname: “Withers, are you with us?”

Pitchfork: How did you meet the Rwandan singer on the album, Emmanuel?

JW: There’s a coffee shop I used to like going to, and he looked after the cars there. One day, he started speaking to me about music and said he’d come to South Africa to be a musician and asked if I could record him. So we did a recording, and then he disappeared for a year. He’s quite hard to contact. I ran into him again when I was living in a different place in the city last year, and it turned out he lived on the same street. So I showed him some of the stuff that I’d been doing, and he grabbed a mic and started to sing.

Pitchfork: The idea of musical appropriation can be a touchy subject, do a lot of bands in Cape Town have both white and black members?

JW: It doesn’t happen much. There isn't very much of a meeting of cultures in that way. It should happen more. But again, it’s sensitive-- you don’t want to use an African singer just because you want something to have an African vibe.

Pitchfork: Were you wary of people seeing your collaboration with Emmanuel in that light?

JW: It concerned me, but I really liked how it was sounding. So once I had a little bit of positive affirmation from other people, that concern diminished.

Pitchfork: You're currently working in a music studio, making music for TV ads. Is that fun for you?

JW: It can be very fun. The second half of the album track "Finally/Jet Up" evolved out of an ad that I was working on. But there are also ads where you have to just get through it, too.

Pitchfork: What’s the most ridiculous jingle you've had to come up with?

JW: I did this one for a petrol company-- I had to do a take off of a Woody Guthrie song and make car noises with my mouth.

Pitchfork: Is it important for you to keep a distance between the music you make for ads and the music you make for yourself?

JW: There's that impulse to separate yourself between being very creative and very practical, but I don’t think it has to be that necessarily. Sometimes I find myself listening to stuff I’ve done for ads over and over again because I actually really like the idea, but it’s not quite the thing I’d want to put out into the world.

Pitchfork: Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re trying to emulate another band’s sound when you’re making these commercials?

JW: You have to. Sometimes, that’s exactly what the client wants because they don’t have enough money for the actual track, so you have to try and get it as close as possible without actually writing the same song. You get band references when you're given jobs-- Beach House is one of the bands that pops up a lot. With that kind of work, though, part of me switches off because it seems very easy.

Pitchfork: What if someone came to you a year from now and wanted a commercial to sound like John Wizards. Would you be OK with that?

JW: Maybe I’d feel flattered. I'm not sure. Ask me when it happens-- I don’t know if it will.